A wide variety of dispensers exist for dispensing various materials, including without limitation soap, disinfectant, sanitizer, and other dispensers, and dispensers adapted to dispense lotion, and perfume. Such dispensers can dispense material in any form. For example, such dispensers can be adapted to dispense gas, vapor, liquid, gel, foam, tablet, pellet, or other form in a metered or non-metered manner.
In many environments and applications, dispensers must meet requirements beyond simply dispensing material on demand. These requirements can relate to the cleanability, appearance, accessibility, and/or ease of use of the dispenser. For example, a number of existing dispensers are not acceptable for many environments due to the design of their housings, mounting brackets, and other elements. Many of these dispensers have complex designs with seams, apertures, and other features enabling buildup of dirt, dispensed material, and other matter, or which prevent the ability of cleaning personnel to adequately clean areas adjacent the dispensers. One such dispenser is disclosed in international patent application publication number WO/2001/028397, which discloses a dispenser design having a rear housing fixed to a wall and containing a reservoir of soap or disinfectant, and a cover plate covering the reservoir and rotatable with respect to the rear housing and the reservoir. In operation of the dispenser disclosed in WO/2001/028397, a user pushes against the cover plate to rotate the cover plate toward the rear housing to dispense soap. When the reservoir is empty, the cover plate is unlocked and rotated upward to remove and replace the reservoir, at which time the interior of the rear housing can be cleaned. The rear housing or cover plate of the dispenser disclosed in WO/2001/028397 can only be cleaned if the cover plate is unlocked and rotated away from the rear housing, thereby significantly increasing the difficulty of cleaning the dispenser and potentially making the dispenser unsuitable for many environments.
As another example, a number of dispensers do not present (and are not easily adaptable to present) a pleasing appearance to users, or have an appearance that cannot easily be changed. In many cases, the appearance of these dispensers cannot be changed to match the environment of the dispenser—a feature that is particularly important, for example, in hotel and restaurant bathrooms and in other locations where aesthetics are more relevant. With reference again to the dispenser disclosed in WO/2001/028397 by way of example only, no provision is made to enable a user to change the color or general appearance of the dispenser.
Also, a number of existing dispensers are not well suited in applications where different users may need to operate the dispensers in different manners. Some users (e.g., handicapped users, users who do not wish touch the dispenser with dirty hands, and the like) may need to operate a dispenser without the use of hands, whereas other users may wish to operate the dispenser by holding and squeezing the dispenser with one or more hands. The dispenser disclosed in WO12001/028397, along with many other available dispensers, fail to offer such versatility.
Accordingly, new dispenser designs continue to be welcome additions to the art.